


Never Shared

by KatLeePT



Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 14:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5093906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatLeePT/pseuds/KatLeePT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janine makes the hardest decision of her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Shared

The phone hasn't rang for over two weeks except for a single wrong number when she finally makes the decision to turn it off. She just can't afford to keep paying to run the station and her home, especially when she's no longer even really getting a paycheck. She's tried to run the place by herself, but a single Ghostbuster, and one with very little training at that, can't do it all by herself. There are too many ghosts in the city and too little means to do what needs to be done.

It's another week later when she finally forces herself to face the facts and make the hardest decision of her life. On that day, she makes a final walk through the station, gazing forlornly at pictures of her dearest friends and unmade beds. She pauses at the fridge, makes certain there's nothing edible still within it, and smiles sadly at her memories of Peter and Slimer fussing over food and Slimer hiding in the fridge. That always was their favorite place in the station, she thinks, shutting the door one last time.

She goes by Ray and Winston's desks with little pause, but she lingers at Egon's for a while. Her fingers tremble slightly as she lifts the tools he once held and passes her hand over his keyboard. None of this seems real any more. She almost feels like a ghost, slipping through life unseen.

But she is not the ghost. She can feel eyes on her every time she enters a room, and now, at last, she talks to the unseen spirit. "Whoever you are," she announces, "you're not going to win. I'm not going to shut off the containment system. I'm keeping the electricity running just to keep your friends contained, and I'll be by once a week to check and make sure everything's the way it should be. And they're coming back, you know. One of these days, they'll be back, and they'll bust your ass good."

She can almost hear the ghost laughing and sneering at her as she turns, with tears in her green eyes, from Egon's desk and continues on her lonely trek through the station. She hates to leave, but she has to get a job that can pay her so she can keep the electricity running as she vowed. She has to move on with her life. She can't simply keep spending every day, all day, waiting for her friends to return.

Janine wraps her arms around herself and rubs her own, chilled flesh with her hands. She sounded so brave when she talked to that ghost. She puts on a good show always, even when she's by herself, but that's all it is. She's scared. She doesn't know what took the guys, and she still expects it come after her. More than that, she's terrified she'll never see them again.

She walks alone to her desk, touches her chair, lays a hand on her computer, and then grabs her bag. She pauses and puts her purse back down. She doesn't feel the excitement building as she turns and walks to her filing cabinet. She takes out four files, opens each, and runs her fingers lovingly over the typed notes and smiling faces contained within the manila folders. She presses her fingertip to one set of smiling lips, wishing, with all her heart, that she'd kissed Egon when she'd had the chance.

Turning on her high heels, Janine makes a second walk through the station. Everything is exactly as she's left it; there's no one to move anything, after all, no matter how much she wished it were otherwise. This time, she picks up the pictures which she lingered looking at before and takes a second set of spectacles from their hiding place in a drawer of which she's well aware.

He'd fuss if he was here to see her going through his things, but he isn't here. A tear drops down her cheek. Everything, anything, would be okay if he was, but he isn't. Her steps slow as she gradually returns to her desk and, with a great sigh, picks up her bag a second time.

Head held high and proud as always, she forces herself to march out of the station without looking back. If she had looked back, she still would have only seen an empty station that had once been so full of life and activity. If she had looked back, she still wouldn't have heard the voices screaming her name.

"JANINE! JANINE! JANINE!"

Ray lays a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder. "She can't hear you, Egon."

Winston shakes his head. "As smart as we all are, you'd think we'd find a way to communicate with her."

"Do you not think I've tried?"

"I know you've tried, Egon. We've all tried."

A breeze whistles through the station as Peter sighs. "I almost wish the little Spud hadn't moved on."

"Yeah. If Slimer was here, he'd at least be able to tell her we're still here."

"But she'll never know," Egon whispers, his head dropping in defeat. Tears cloud his blue eyes, and although he feels the pats from his friends all around him, they are of little consolence. After all, there's much more Janine will never know than the fact they've been trapped in spirit forms. That lack of knowledge is terrible enough of its own accord, but what makes the wind whistling through the lonely station sound like it's crying is the fact that she'll never know he loved her always. He used to wonder if a ghost could cry, but now he knows, as she walks out of their lives forever, first hand that they can. His friends surround him, but still, he cries for the one he's lost and the love they'll never get to share.

  
**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> All characters within the above story belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.


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